Rookie Park - Sound In The Signals Interview
I recently had the opportunity to interview Rookie Park. We discussed how an early interest in music led to creating their own music, touring, the Texas music scene, and more. Check it out below.
First, thanks for the interview.
Of course! Thank you for the opportunity!
Can you tell me more about how you initially became interested in music and how you started writing songs?
I think my interest in music started from a young age—I was hearing all kinds of music daily via my parents on car rides, and/or having my older brothers sharing music with me since they were a couple of years older and were on top of current music trends I didn’t understand. I feel like music was just something that stuck with me as I got older….collecting and downloading music throughout my teens and going to more and more shows as I went through high school and college. I think the same goes for all of us in the band—music has just been a huge part of our lives growing up.
Naturally, after being a music fan for so long, you sometimes end up trying to pick up an instrument and the song writing comes along with that territory. Once I started living in Austin, going to local emo/diy shows throughout the years, I was compelled and inspired to write my own songs and hopefully start a band at some point. 2020 came around and with a bunch of time on my hands, I began to write songs with a lot more intention. I had a great support system around me early on in my song writing journey and feel like I still have so much more to learn from the rest of the band and the scene around us.
You released "friendship pt. 2" last year. What are your thoughts looking back at it now?
Friendship was the project’s debut track and looking back, I think it was a great representation of what Rookie Park was. It also gave listeners an idea of what to expect moving forward. It was an ambitious track for me. I wrote, recorded, mixed and mastered the entire song. It was the first song I brought to Peyton, Jake and Will before they offered to join the band and help Rookie Park become more than just a passion project.
You recently released new song, "My Dog". Can you tell us about writing and recording it?
My Dog came to be all in one night actually. I was writing a totally different song at the time. I had this shoegaze tune I was working on for while and needed to write a verse to it. I was also listening to a ton of Slaughter Beach, Dog at the time and the combination of those two things plus me going through a break up—I began singing some sappy break up lyrics and repeated the same chords over and over again. My dog Bella was in the room with me and I decided to start a voice memo as I was just riffing. Eventually, I had a full song. We workshopped it together as band after that years later and now it’s our biggest track lol.
You've said the song is about "going through the motions of the post break-up day to day, the song is a bittersweet take on the reminiscing of a relationship. One where a pet played a major role in the partnership". What do you hope fans take away from the song? What did you take away from writing it?
Hmm, I haven’t really thought about this much…I would hope that fans and friends could hear this song and get a better picture of what we’re all about as a band. I mean truthfully, the song is very honest and upfront with itself. Lyrically, it’s a bit conversational and lots of people at our shows smile at that main lyric— “I think of you when I see my dog”— so if anything I hope they can see the grace and (the little bit of) humor that can come with being vulnerable and honest. I would say the same for myself…writing the song gave me the space to be graceful with the emotions I had at the time.
Are you currently working on new music? What can you tell us about it so far?
We are!! We’ve been taking a very collaborative approach with the new stuff. Peyton, Jake and Will are all incredible song writers and play in one of Texas’ heavy hitter emo bands, Drunk Uncle. The EP we released was a lot of my own vision at first. Demos and unfinished songs I brought to guys to help me finish. Moving forward, we’ve been working as team—building songs from the ground up, with everyone’s own influences getting put into the mix. We’re all really excited to start playing the new songs and plan to spend a lot more time writing the next few months.
You recently went on your first tour/weekender. Tell us more about this experience.
We got together with our friends in another Texas band called Sleep Schedule based out of San Antonio, Texas. We hit three cities in three days. Started with Austin, then Waco, then Denton. There’s a local Waco band called Bedtime Stories that have been helping grow their scene and have stayed in touch with us for a while. Then a current Denton staple band, Jockey, had played some shows with both us and Sleep Schedule before—these two bands helped us put together the out of town shows. We decided to kick off the tour with a show our own house venue in Austin called the Arnold House. We were all just so stoked to be traveling and playing music together. The best part of it all was making new friends around Texas and seeing just how special each community/scene was in each city. Everyone was so welcoming and we cannot wait to be back in those places.
Thanks for taking the time to answer the questions. Is there anything else that you'd like to add?
The band and I are a part of a music/art collective we started to help shed a light on the local diy/emo scene in Austin and Texas called Tiny Sounds Collective. We’ve been booking our own house shows and hosted some of our favorite bands such as Kerosene Heights, Smoke Detector, Michael Cera Palin, TRSH, Riley!, Equipment, Summerbruise and many more! Follow the page on instagram @tinysounds.cltv or look it up on YouTube to see documented set videos! There are a ton of amazing bands in Texas and we’re stoked to be a part of the growing scene here.
Thanks again for having us!
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